I
spent the first eight and a half years of my life in the beautiful state of
Alaska. My family lived fifty miles from the
nearest town and a mile down a dirt road, off the Alaska Highway. We had those old crank phones. We never locked our doors. About the only thing I feared was coming up
on a bear while playing in the woods. It
truly was a wonderful place to grow up!
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However,
that all changed when we packed up our belongings and moved to California. We settled into a tiny home on a busy street
with cars roaring up and down at all hours of the day and night. I would awaken in the night, gripped with
fear thinking someone had invaded our house only to realize it was just the
furnace coming on.
My world was turned upside down.
Fear
stalked me like a lion seeking prey, ready to pounce at any moment. It was a
paralyzing terror that threatened to overwhelm me, especially in the dark hours
of the night.
One
day my mom shared a verse with me to encourage me in my struggle and it became
my mantra.
. . . When I am afraid, I
will put my trust in you. Psalm 56.3
I
would lay in my bed, saying this verse over and over and over. Hoping that it would magically remove the
fear in my heart and let me sleep. Even
though I quoted this verse endlessly, it never quite seemed to work. My fear was just as palpable as before.
I
thought those words were magic. That if
I said them in just the right way, with just the right inflection than my fear
would be gone. I believed that these were the code words
to release me from my fear.
I was missing something and that “something” was my action. It’s not enough just to say the words over
and over. I needed to replace my fear with
Trust. I needed to believe it, act on
it, and live it.
Trust
takes practice. It's hard work and
it never comes easy.
It’s
easy to fear. It’s easy to take
control. It’s easy to be self-focused.
A
few years ago, I once again, found myself living in world of fear with my
children. I was consumed with anxiety
over what they were doing and what they would become. The more control I took the more out of
control I felt. I was overwhelmed. In that place of fear, God asked me
to surrender them to Him; to let go of the control and trust Him. As I pried my fingers off the lives of my
children and learned to release them to Him, God filled me with His perfect
peace.
Over
the years, I have had to surrender them over and over to the God who loves them
even more than I do. It hasn’t been
easy. Truthfully, it’s been a lot of
hard work because I have a tendency to take them back again and again. But as I’ve worked on this area of trust, it
has gotten easier, and I respond quicker.
I know that in the upcoming months it will be easy to let fear raise its
ugly head in life. But fear is God’s
reminder to me to trust Him.
Once again, I’m faced with dread as my son heads off to Afghanistan with the military. I can let fear invade my life and stalk me like a lion or I can choose to Trust.
I
no longer need to quote words from the Bible with my fingers crossed hoping
that they work. I choose to take God at
His word and trust Him with my children, my life and my salvation.
How
about you? Are you living in a world of
fear? Are you LIVING by trust or by
anxiety and worry?
Let
fear be your cue to TRUST!
Amen sister!
ReplyDeleteI don't tend to live in fear--sometimes I think it's because I'm not smart enough to know I should be afraid:). But I do understand those moments when we worry about the ones we love--especially going off to a dangerous region of the world. Praying peace for you and safety for your son.
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